Manuscript of "Why do YOU go to church- Reason #1: Worship"
Is everyone ready to be thrown off today, because I am preaching from the pulpit this morning? It is not something I normally do, but it is something that I felt I needed to start doing. Before I begin, the past week and a half for me has been extremely difficult, but extremely spiritual. I have come across some things and made some discoveries that I believe everyone needs to hear. On Monday, I was in my office and I was very depressed. I wasn’t feeling the spirituality. I was just very down. I was talking with a colleague of mine that day and he is having trouble in his ministry too, so we were just patting each other on the back, trying to give another look on the situation. It can be very helpful to have another opinion. While we were talking, we decided we needed to go back to the basics and reexamine what “The Reproductive Church” looks like. So, we sat down and came up with this model of the “Acts 2 church”. I know I’ve said it before, but it is the church described in Acts 2 that we should be modeling in our churches. This model had 3 elements in it and my friend asked me, “where does your church have problems?” I paused, and replied, “All of these. There isn’t one of these foundational items that we have down pat 100%”. And I turned to him and asked him the same question. He replied, “I was hoping you’d say that, because my church has the same issue.” So, I asked what we needed to do, and eventually, we decided that we needed to pray. So we prayed for each other, the ministries we are involved in and then we went our own way. That evening as I was at home with the kids, I was pondering over the things we talked about. I kept getting a nudging from the Holy Spirit that what we talked about needed to have something done with it. It needed to be more than just writing on a page. We came up with this ‘model’ in about 20 minutes. It wasn’t enough just to make this ‘model’. It needed to be looked at in a deeper level than just looking at it on the surface of a piece of paper. So, I heeded the Holy Spirits nudging, and went along with it. So, I decided to make it a Sunday School Lesson. I started planning everything out, and then I got another nudge. The Spirit was saying, “No, not a Sunday School Lesson, this needs to be preached.” I was like, “Really? Ok…I’ll make it into a Sermon Series. I’ll stick it in after Easter.” Again, the Spirit said, “No, not after Easter, NOW.” Of course I replied, “But God, I am in the middle of a Sermon Series, I can’t just quit in the middle!” And he says, “No, no, no. Shuffle them around. Put the current ‘Life of Christ’ series in Sunday School and preach this message now. This isn’t something to be preached 2 months from now or in a Sunday School, everyone needs to hear this. Preach it NOW.” And I said, “Alright, you win.” So, I gave in, because God wins every time and made it a sermon series starting this week.
Before I go any further, let me say this. If I offend anyone this morning, you have my apologies because I was offended too. I don’t like this message any more than you do, because it nails me where I am at too. But this is something that has to be preached, has to be heard by more than what come to Sunday School. The entire church everywhere needs to hear this message because fundamentally, the American church is broken. We have got to get back to the basics of Christianity if we will ever see growth again. So, if you are offended, I want you to take a look at why you are offended; because in my own personal experience, if I am offended by a preacher, then there is something wrong with what I am doing. I need to examine it and correct it.
With that said, the main question we will answer over the next 3 weeks is, “Why do YOU go to church?” Not as in “why SHOULD you go to church” or “why DO you go to church”, but as in “why do YOU personally go to church.” Moreover, why do you come here to Lima? What is it that brings you here or to any church, period? So, I went through and made a list of the reasons people might go to church.
1. Because my parents made (or still make) you.
2. Because it is the right thing to do.
3. For show or to be seen. A ‘look at me’ thing.
4. Because mom and dad did, so it’s just what we do.
5. To get your “Get out of Hell free card” punched for the week.
6. Are you not sure WHY you go to church?
7. Because ‘good people’ go to church.
8. Because my family has been here forever, why change tradition?
9. To feel good about yourself.
If any one of these reasons are why you go to church, then my friends, you are here for the wrong reasons. This is one of those offensive moments. If you are here for the primary reason of any of the above, you are here for the wrong reasons. The primary reason we go to church should be to worship God, no more, no less. All worship is is a gathering together to give honor, glory and worship to the Creator because he rightly deserves it.
This week, we are going to talk about worship, and then we will talk about discipleship and evangelism the next 2 weeks. These together form the 3 things form the primary reason of why we should go to church. In this week as we go through worship, there are 5 elements in worship that need to be present.
But before I go further, I want to give the basis of this series. It is Proverbs 3:1-12. Turn with me there and we will read.
1 My son, don’t forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commands;
2 for they will bring you
many days, a full life, and well-being.
3 Never let loyalty and faithfulness leave you.
Tie them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Then you will find favor and high regard
in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own understanding;
6 think about Him in all your ways,
and He will guide you on the right paths.
7 Don’t consider yourself to be wise;
fear the LORD and turn away from evil.
8 This will be healing for your body
and strengthening for your bones.
9 Honor the LORD with your possessions
and with the first produce of your entire harvest;
10 then your barns will be completely filled,
and your vats will overflow with new wine.
11 Do not despise the LORD’s instruction, my son,
and do not loathe His discipline;
12 for the LORD disciplines the one He loves,
just as a father, the son he delights in.
I want to focus on verses 5 & 6. That is what I want to base this sermon series on. However there are a couple things we need to understand before we can fully understand 5 & 6. Back in verses 1 & 2, the author talks about following God’s commands and having a full life and well-being. In verses 9 & 10, he talks about honoring the Lord with your possessions and having the barns filled and vats filled with wine. I could go through and cherry pick this and turn it into a health and wealth Gospel, but that’s not what this is talking about. This isn’t about keeping His commands and having 100 years on earth or about giving the Lord the first fruits and having wealth beyond imagination. No. This is spiritual. Honor the Lord by keeping his decrees, and you will have a full spiritual life. Honor the Lord with your possessions, and you will have wealth and reward in heaven. This is a spiritual thing, not physical. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths.”
Today, the Worship elements are derived from Acts 2:41-47. I won’t go through and read this, but the 5 elements of worship come from this particular passage. Now, what I will do is put these in the order that we do them here, simply because it is familiar. This is not a set order or anything that needs to be in order, these are just the elements needed.
We start with Praise. We sing songs of praise, state aloud our praises for the week, so we can praise God. First and foremost, we are to be praising God, to follow the Spirit’s lead, to lift our hands in worship. See, I have a problem with praise because I follow the crowd too much. I don’t lift my hands, dance, or if I don’t know a song I don’t sing loud. And that’s wrong because if the Spirit’s leading me to do it, then I need to do it, because that’s what the Spirit’s leading me to do. If I am squelching the Spirit, then I am here for the wrong reasons. Do you not sing because you don’t want your neighbor to hear you ‘quacking’? Don’t worry about it, we all quack…it’s not about what your neighbor thinks, it’s about voicing your praise to God because he wants to hear your voice singing praises to Him. That’s what He wants. He wants you to lift your hands in praise to Him. I am not going to try and turn this into a Pentecostal church, no. What I am saying is that we need to follow the Spirit’s lead. If we are squelching the Spirit, then we are here for the wrong reasons. Don’t be afraid to lift your hands or sing out in praise of God.
We then follow with prayer. We do pray several times during the service. But usually that’s corporate prayer led by someone. But prayer should be something that happens more than just corporately. If you are not praying during the worship service, at various times, then we need to. If you hear something during a song and moved by it, pray. If you hear me say something that strikes a chord, stop and pray. Don’t squelch the Spirit. We should be praying multiple times during the service.
The next thing up is something that I know this church has had past arguments over and since I’ve been here I haven’t heard this argument. I believe this is an element that needs to happen; and that’s Communion. I do not believe that Communion should be a quarterly thing, I do not believe Communion should be a monthly thing, I do not even believe Communion should be a weekly thing. You ready to burn me at the stake yet? Because Communion needs to be an every time we gather thing. Every time the first century church gathered, they had communion. It’s about remembering our Savior and what He did for us on that cross. That is what is supposed to happen in my belief.
The next thing we do is offering. Now I could come up here and preach 5 years about how important money and tithing is. But it’s more than just money. Don’t get me wrong, money is important. He uses what we give to further His kingdom. Time, Talent & Treasure. We are really good at Treasure; what we lack is Time and Talent. And I qualify in this realm too. This is hitting home for me as much as it is for you too. Hence the reason I really didn’t wanna preach this. It is just plain difficult to hear.
It is about Time. If we are not giving our Time to God, if we are not giving our Talents to Him, then we are here for the wrong reasons. Every time we step foot into the world, we need to be giving and devoting our Time to Him. No matter what you are doing during the day, speak out for Him. Use your Time to minister to other people. There is a guy in our Men’s group and every day at work he shares his faith. He is a great example of sharing faith no matter what you do. He isn’t perfect at it, but he uses the opportunities he gets. It’s amazing. I have trouble with it. It’s hard to take that step of faith out, but that’s what it is, it’s a step of faith into a realm that we aren’t quite sure how people are going to receive it. Because we don’t want to get persecuted; quit being afraid. Count it as all joy to be persecuted for God. It is an awesome thing…and I consider myself lucky.
If you are not using your Talents to God, then why do you have them? What are you talented at? Are you using them for the Kingdom? I am not just talking about here in the church. Talent survey was for that purpose, to figure out what you are talent at. But it’s not just about here at church. This is a building; this is a building. The church isn’t here, this is a building. The church is you. You are the church. You are the body of Christ. You are the ones to go and out in the world and using the gifts that you have, not just inside of these four walls or an hour service on Sunday morning. It’s more than that.
Finally, we come to the Proclamation of the Word. Whether you are speaking or listening, it is an act of worship to God to hear His Word proclaimed. I’m not the best preacher in the world. There are a lot of guys I listen to that are far better than me. But I try to stick to the Word and proclaim that Word in Truth. I have to stay true to that if I am going to be a preacher. That is why I have to preach these messages because like in Jeremiah, it’s like a fire in my belly. I have to preach it. I have to.
Now, these 5 elements are present in the various things we do, I’ll use Men’s group for an example. We praise God, prayer, offer our time, proclaim the word and the only thing we do not do is Communion. “Where 1 or 2 are gathered, there I am.” Jesus says. Every time we gather together, it is a worship service. I want to stretch your thinking on that today. Every time we gather together, it is a worship service. Bible study, to serve a dinner, it is a worship service for God. That’s what we are here for. We are not here just to come on Sunday for an hour and be done for the week. It’s about more than that. There are areas every church struggles in worship, because we try to squelch the Spirit because we’re uncomfortable, fear or any reason. Coming to church because you say you are a ‘good person’ is not the right reason to be here. It just isn’t the right reason to be here. You reason for being here first and foremost should be to worship the Creator. That’s why you’re here; to worship Him in all Truth and all fullness and not squelch the Spirit’s moving when you feel it. Trust me you’ll feel it, you’ll know. The further in deep with Christ you get, the more familiar with that feeling you will be. Being ‘good’ and coming to church isn’t going to save you in the end. Let me say it again; being ‘good’ and coming to church isn’t going to save you in the end. There is only one thing that will do that and there are multiple elements to that one thing. It is confessing Christ as Savior, it is being baptized in His name and it is living a life surrendered to Him. Coming forward in an emotional moment and getting dunked once in your life and doing nothing with it ain’t gonna do the job. It has to include living a life that is surrendered to Him. That is the only thing that is going to get us there. No work we do will ever measure up to the amount we did do.
From the movie “Courageous”, when we convict a criminal, we don’t negate the bad they did with what good they had done…the good doesn’t matter. It’s the bad that they get convicted on. If the judge lets the guy off, you’d say he’s a bad judge right? Well, that’s what Jesus does for us. He takes the punishment for the sin we commit. Our good will never outweigh the bad; THAT is why you need to confess Christ as Savior. On the other hand, if you are not willing to do the work behind your faith, then just as James 2:26 says, your faith is dead. If you are not willing to do the work behind your faith, then your faith is dead.
My friends, I preach this sermon this morning as a wakeup call. We have got to get right before we will ever see growth again. Over the next few weeks, the Elders and I will start having prayer meetings once a week, minimum. We have got to get right with God, otherwise the worst fears will happen. This church will close. We have got to get right with God. That’s all there is to it.
If we don’t, we will never see growth, vertically or horizontally. I want to invite anyone who wants to come to those prayer meetings, please do so. If you are led by the Spirit to do so, please come. Don’t squelch the Spirit. I pray you have received this in a Spirit of love…this is a rebuke of you and me. I don’t like seeing what I do wrong, but sometimes it’s necessary. The next 2 weeks, we will cover discipleship and evangelism.
If you need prayer or to give your life to God, come forward, don’t squelch the Spirit. Allow us to pray for you, allow us to ‘get you dunked’, let’s start off on the right foot together…let’s get on the same page as God, and let’s get right with Him.
Before I go any further, let me say this. If I offend anyone this morning, you have my apologies because I was offended too. I don’t like this message any more than you do, because it nails me where I am at too. But this is something that has to be preached, has to be heard by more than what come to Sunday School. The entire church everywhere needs to hear this message because fundamentally, the American church is broken. We have got to get back to the basics of Christianity if we will ever see growth again. So, if you are offended, I want you to take a look at why you are offended; because in my own personal experience, if I am offended by a preacher, then there is something wrong with what I am doing. I need to examine it and correct it.
With that said, the main question we will answer over the next 3 weeks is, “Why do YOU go to church?” Not as in “why SHOULD you go to church” or “why DO you go to church”, but as in “why do YOU personally go to church.” Moreover, why do you come here to Lima? What is it that brings you here or to any church, period? So, I went through and made a list of the reasons people might go to church.
1. Because my parents made (or still make) you.
2. Because it is the right thing to do.
3. For show or to be seen. A ‘look at me’ thing.
4. Because mom and dad did, so it’s just what we do.
5. To get your “Get out of Hell free card” punched for the week.
6. Are you not sure WHY you go to church?
7. Because ‘good people’ go to church.
8. Because my family has been here forever, why change tradition?
9. To feel good about yourself.
If any one of these reasons are why you go to church, then my friends, you are here for the wrong reasons. This is one of those offensive moments. If you are here for the primary reason of any of the above, you are here for the wrong reasons. The primary reason we go to church should be to worship God, no more, no less. All worship is is a gathering together to give honor, glory and worship to the Creator because he rightly deserves it.
This week, we are going to talk about worship, and then we will talk about discipleship and evangelism the next 2 weeks. These together form the 3 things form the primary reason of why we should go to church. In this week as we go through worship, there are 5 elements in worship that need to be present.
But before I go further, I want to give the basis of this series. It is Proverbs 3:1-12. Turn with me there and we will read.
1 My son, don’t forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commands;
2 for they will bring you
many days, a full life, and well-being.
3 Never let loyalty and faithfulness leave you.
Tie them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Then you will find favor and high regard
in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own understanding;
6 think about Him in all your ways,
and He will guide you on the right paths.
7 Don’t consider yourself to be wise;
fear the LORD and turn away from evil.
8 This will be healing for your body
and strengthening for your bones.
9 Honor the LORD with your possessions
and with the first produce of your entire harvest;
10 then your barns will be completely filled,
and your vats will overflow with new wine.
11 Do not despise the LORD’s instruction, my son,
and do not loathe His discipline;
12 for the LORD disciplines the one He loves,
just as a father, the son he delights in.
I want to focus on verses 5 & 6. That is what I want to base this sermon series on. However there are a couple things we need to understand before we can fully understand 5 & 6. Back in verses 1 & 2, the author talks about following God’s commands and having a full life and well-being. In verses 9 & 10, he talks about honoring the Lord with your possessions and having the barns filled and vats filled with wine. I could go through and cherry pick this and turn it into a health and wealth Gospel, but that’s not what this is talking about. This isn’t about keeping His commands and having 100 years on earth or about giving the Lord the first fruits and having wealth beyond imagination. No. This is spiritual. Honor the Lord by keeping his decrees, and you will have a full spiritual life. Honor the Lord with your possessions, and you will have wealth and reward in heaven. This is a spiritual thing, not physical. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths.”
Today, the Worship elements are derived from Acts 2:41-47. I won’t go through and read this, but the 5 elements of worship come from this particular passage. Now, what I will do is put these in the order that we do them here, simply because it is familiar. This is not a set order or anything that needs to be in order, these are just the elements needed.
We start with Praise. We sing songs of praise, state aloud our praises for the week, so we can praise God. First and foremost, we are to be praising God, to follow the Spirit’s lead, to lift our hands in worship. See, I have a problem with praise because I follow the crowd too much. I don’t lift my hands, dance, or if I don’t know a song I don’t sing loud. And that’s wrong because if the Spirit’s leading me to do it, then I need to do it, because that’s what the Spirit’s leading me to do. If I am squelching the Spirit, then I am here for the wrong reasons. Do you not sing because you don’t want your neighbor to hear you ‘quacking’? Don’t worry about it, we all quack…it’s not about what your neighbor thinks, it’s about voicing your praise to God because he wants to hear your voice singing praises to Him. That’s what He wants. He wants you to lift your hands in praise to Him. I am not going to try and turn this into a Pentecostal church, no. What I am saying is that we need to follow the Spirit’s lead. If we are squelching the Spirit, then we are here for the wrong reasons. Don’t be afraid to lift your hands or sing out in praise of God.
We then follow with prayer. We do pray several times during the service. But usually that’s corporate prayer led by someone. But prayer should be something that happens more than just corporately. If you are not praying during the worship service, at various times, then we need to. If you hear something during a song and moved by it, pray. If you hear me say something that strikes a chord, stop and pray. Don’t squelch the Spirit. We should be praying multiple times during the service.
The next thing up is something that I know this church has had past arguments over and since I’ve been here I haven’t heard this argument. I believe this is an element that needs to happen; and that’s Communion. I do not believe that Communion should be a quarterly thing, I do not believe Communion should be a monthly thing, I do not even believe Communion should be a weekly thing. You ready to burn me at the stake yet? Because Communion needs to be an every time we gather thing. Every time the first century church gathered, they had communion. It’s about remembering our Savior and what He did for us on that cross. That is what is supposed to happen in my belief.
The next thing we do is offering. Now I could come up here and preach 5 years about how important money and tithing is. But it’s more than just money. Don’t get me wrong, money is important. He uses what we give to further His kingdom. Time, Talent & Treasure. We are really good at Treasure; what we lack is Time and Talent. And I qualify in this realm too. This is hitting home for me as much as it is for you too. Hence the reason I really didn’t wanna preach this. It is just plain difficult to hear.
It is about Time. If we are not giving our Time to God, if we are not giving our Talents to Him, then we are here for the wrong reasons. Every time we step foot into the world, we need to be giving and devoting our Time to Him. No matter what you are doing during the day, speak out for Him. Use your Time to minister to other people. There is a guy in our Men’s group and every day at work he shares his faith. He is a great example of sharing faith no matter what you do. He isn’t perfect at it, but he uses the opportunities he gets. It’s amazing. I have trouble with it. It’s hard to take that step of faith out, but that’s what it is, it’s a step of faith into a realm that we aren’t quite sure how people are going to receive it. Because we don’t want to get persecuted; quit being afraid. Count it as all joy to be persecuted for God. It is an awesome thing…and I consider myself lucky.
If you are not using your Talents to God, then why do you have them? What are you talented at? Are you using them for the Kingdom? I am not just talking about here in the church. Talent survey was for that purpose, to figure out what you are talent at. But it’s not just about here at church. This is a building; this is a building. The church isn’t here, this is a building. The church is you. You are the church. You are the body of Christ. You are the ones to go and out in the world and using the gifts that you have, not just inside of these four walls or an hour service on Sunday morning. It’s more than that.
Finally, we come to the Proclamation of the Word. Whether you are speaking or listening, it is an act of worship to God to hear His Word proclaimed. I’m not the best preacher in the world. There are a lot of guys I listen to that are far better than me. But I try to stick to the Word and proclaim that Word in Truth. I have to stay true to that if I am going to be a preacher. That is why I have to preach these messages because like in Jeremiah, it’s like a fire in my belly. I have to preach it. I have to.
Now, these 5 elements are present in the various things we do, I’ll use Men’s group for an example. We praise God, prayer, offer our time, proclaim the word and the only thing we do not do is Communion. “Where 1 or 2 are gathered, there I am.” Jesus says. Every time we gather together, it is a worship service. I want to stretch your thinking on that today. Every time we gather together, it is a worship service. Bible study, to serve a dinner, it is a worship service for God. That’s what we are here for. We are not here just to come on Sunday for an hour and be done for the week. It’s about more than that. There are areas every church struggles in worship, because we try to squelch the Spirit because we’re uncomfortable, fear or any reason. Coming to church because you say you are a ‘good person’ is not the right reason to be here. It just isn’t the right reason to be here. You reason for being here first and foremost should be to worship the Creator. That’s why you’re here; to worship Him in all Truth and all fullness and not squelch the Spirit’s moving when you feel it. Trust me you’ll feel it, you’ll know. The further in deep with Christ you get, the more familiar with that feeling you will be. Being ‘good’ and coming to church isn’t going to save you in the end. Let me say it again; being ‘good’ and coming to church isn’t going to save you in the end. There is only one thing that will do that and there are multiple elements to that one thing. It is confessing Christ as Savior, it is being baptized in His name and it is living a life surrendered to Him. Coming forward in an emotional moment and getting dunked once in your life and doing nothing with it ain’t gonna do the job. It has to include living a life that is surrendered to Him. That is the only thing that is going to get us there. No work we do will ever measure up to the amount we did do.
From the movie “Courageous”, when we convict a criminal, we don’t negate the bad they did with what good they had done…the good doesn’t matter. It’s the bad that they get convicted on. If the judge lets the guy off, you’d say he’s a bad judge right? Well, that’s what Jesus does for us. He takes the punishment for the sin we commit. Our good will never outweigh the bad; THAT is why you need to confess Christ as Savior. On the other hand, if you are not willing to do the work behind your faith, then just as James 2:26 says, your faith is dead. If you are not willing to do the work behind your faith, then your faith is dead.
My friends, I preach this sermon this morning as a wakeup call. We have got to get right before we will ever see growth again. Over the next few weeks, the Elders and I will start having prayer meetings once a week, minimum. We have got to get right with God, otherwise the worst fears will happen. This church will close. We have got to get right with God. That’s all there is to it.
If we don’t, we will never see growth, vertically or horizontally. I want to invite anyone who wants to come to those prayer meetings, please do so. If you are led by the Spirit to do so, please come. Don’t squelch the Spirit. I pray you have received this in a Spirit of love…this is a rebuke of you and me. I don’t like seeing what I do wrong, but sometimes it’s necessary. The next 2 weeks, we will cover discipleship and evangelism.
If you need prayer or to give your life to God, come forward, don’t squelch the Spirit. Allow us to pray for you, allow us to ‘get you dunked’, let’s start off on the right foot together…let’s get on the same page as God, and let’s get right with Him.
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